Derby Talk

Topspin.D wrote:

sporty wrote:How do you feel about the spoon cars ? The design and shape.

You pleasedo with them ?

Sporty the spoon is awesome. I think that once you understand the key design principles of PWD cars you can make any shape/style reasonably fast... but the spoon is something that is very achievable with minimal tooling (drill/rasp/file/sandpaper) and produces very solid outcomes.

Seth, these are full weight 2.6 g wheels. I tried to pick the best ones out of my stash of wheels (which wasn't very good .003 runout). I didn't even put them on my unimat lathe to true them up. After 3 years of pack wins, I didn't want any question about doing anything shady... These cars are pure out of the box (except the balsa for fenders).

I'm very glad you are pleased with the design.

I came up with that in 2008/2009.

I'm glad it still does well.

I usually got that shape and style to 9 to 10 grams.

Seth, these are full weight 2.6 g wheels. I tried to pick the best ones out of my stash of wheels (which wasn't very good .003 runout). I didn't even put them on my unimat lathe to true them up. After 3 years of pack wins, I didn't want any question about doing anything shady... These cars are pure out of the box (except the balsa for fenders).

Dave, if I recall you pack allowed wheel mods last year...right? So either you chose to go out of the box or your rules changed. Either way dont beat yourself up (or let the kids) about having faster cars in the past with out of the box cars this year. Did some of your den get lighter wheels?

They are still awesome cars and will create lasting memories. Any you passed the torch...all good stuff.

Seth

The rules changed at the district level and we try to keep the pack rules the same so people don't have to modify or build new cars.

I don't think anyone ran light wheels. I was part of the inspection team and gave the wheel inspector lots of examples of mods to compare with so hopefully none slipped through. The few heats I saw clearly... nobody's car got the typical jump off the start you see with light wheels. It was all in how well they coasted through the flats...

We had districts this week and my sons came back strong winning their ranks (Webelos and Wolf) and taking 1st and 2nd in the overall cub scout and all BSA (including boy scouts) races. This was redemption after the disappointing pack race. Only one person from my older sons den showed up so he was allowed to race (didn't automatically qualify). Both had new cars for this race, which were significantly better than the other cars. Looking at the race data this year was much more competitive than last year. There were 9 kids with cars faster than last year's winner.

Both cars are fairly straight forward designs. We wanted to be more meticulous about fewer details (no fenders, minimal shaping, and simple decoration). All focus was on drilling, weight, wheel/axle prep, and alignment. Yellow wolf car was was the faster of the two. Both set track records.

Congrats TopspinD!
Noskills